JANUARY :}, 1 9 of 2, 26 have at the same time developed some interesting ones of their own. Atlas has great admiration for the Hindus. A story he tells with considerable satisfac- tion is concerned with an acquaintance, a Dr. Goldberg, who was travelling in India a few years ago. "This chap, Dr. Goldberg, was hiking along through these little villages," Atlas says, "and he came to one of them and noticed a knot of men gathered in a kind of open hut. Well, he went up, and what do you think they had propped up in the 1?ack? A pic- ture of Atlas, with a candle burning un- derneath. Why, they were giving me the old salaam, just like they do the cobra." trate on his body and on finance too. Also, he is so trusting that he will allow anybody to impose on him, and Roman has to protect him. Ever since he began his physical-culture business, Atlas has made a comfortable living, even though he has never been as concerned with money as he has with spreading the doc- trine of physical culture. Students who buy the course on the installment plan, for instance, can get all the lessons for a small down payment and a promise to pay the rest eventually. Atlas says he still gets checks from pupils of ten and fifteen years ago. The company's annual gross is about $350,000. A large part of this goes right back into advertising. Atlas's net is said to be around $20,000. Having an almost religious attitude toward the work he is doing, Atlas usu- ally spends much more time than neces- sary on his correspondence. He writes long, detailed letters, not only to stu- dents and prospective students but to boys who just want information and are not interested in taking his course. He gives such advice as "Get up im- mediately on awakening in the morning -providing you wake at a reasonable hour. Don't dilly dally. GET UP!" and "Do not overlook the value of good music. Like attracts like. Music is pure and clean. Good music inspires and lifts you into higher realms. I very strongly recommend that you take what I call a 'MUSIC BATH' daily" and "A good nerve tonic is to dab a little water on your solar plexus, a little above the navel, every morning upon arising. Ex- cellent." He always ends his letters, "With best wishes and a warm handclasp, I re- main, Charles Atlas." A few highly excitable young men have, after getting a fervent Atlas letter, travelled great distances for a confer- ence with the master. Recently one of them hitchhiked all the way from San Francisco, spending nearly a month on the road. When the boy arrived at the office, Atlas flexed his bIceps for his caller and took him to lunch. on the installment plan. The majority of the students are young men from eighteen to twenty-three, but Atlas al- so gets a good many middle-aged men and some women. He has two hun- dred and fifty thousand alumnI. Among them, he likes to point out, are such distinguished men as an ex-Minister of War of Peru, Max Baer, and Fred Allen. In this country he gets about fifteen thousand new students a year. Since the passage of the draft bill, he figures he has taken hold of about a thousand patriotic young men who had been rejected as physically unfit (the majority were underweight) and built them up so that they were able to get into the services. Since December 7th, there has been a conspicuous flurry of Dynamic Tension in the various camps, and at the moment Atlas has seven hun- dred pupils in the Ar ny, Navy, and Coast Guard. A few years ago, Atlas opened a London office, which was bombed by the Nazis last spring but is still doing a big business; England was producing about seven thousand stu- dents annually before the war, and the figure has since gone up to about ten thousand. He also operated a branch of- fice in Buenos Aires until a short while ago; he closed it on account of rising taxes there. South America is still one of the company's most productive areas. Dynamic Tension also has followers in India, South Africa, Australia, and the islands of the South Seas. Atlas claims that there is not a populated region in the world where he does not have alumni. He enjoys corresponding with his disciples in places like Fiji and Siberia; he thinks that a common interest in muscles goes far toward breaking down international bar- riers and promoting brotherly love. He used to have a modest num- ber of pupils in Ger- many, Italy, and Japan, and he regrets now that he didn't do more to promote business in those countries; he thinks it might have made a difference. His represen tation in India is especially strong. The Hindus seem to have an extraordinary interest in their physiques. While they have always taken careful note of foreign exercise systems, they ATLAS generally arrives at his office .Fl.. shortly after lunch. There he eats a dessert of figs and prunes, a supply of which he keeps in a desk drawer. Then he announces to his secretary that he is ready to confer with any visitors who may be waiting. If a visitor is not awed by the twenty-one pictures of Atlas that hang on the walls of the foyer, he is almost certain to be awed by Atlas himself, for the creator of Dynamic Tension usu- ally opens an interview by taking off his shirt. He starts the conversation while seated behind his desk in the semi-nude. His duties consist largely of read- ing and answering mail. He himself answers every inquiry about his course. The rest of his time he spends in keep- ing in shape. The company's finan- cial affairs are looked after by his busi- ness manager, Mr. Charles P. Ro- man, whom he hired fourteen years ago. Atlas finds it difficult to concen- /,/ ,11f' 8 \, n 8 B3 B B\:Ju : . , \ '!I\ 8 fIj 8 3 - : \\ \ . \1 B E/3 t \ \ '\ \ \ \ \ \ w @ ffi ATLAS lives very Il. quietly in a small house at 7901 Twelfth Avenue, in Brooklyn. He is married and has a